After my first on-call rotation at work a few months ago, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the requirement of constant connectivity. Along with my my personal BlackBerry Pearl, I had to carry a BlackBerry and pager for work 24/7. I foolishly ditched the BlackBerry Pearl for a Motorola Z3 slider, but quickly remembered why I had a PDA phone in the first place–I actually like being connected all the time when it’s not work-related.

Within a few days, I picked up an unlocked HTC Dash for cheap on eBay and sold the Z3 so I just about broke even. After about a month, I was starting to grow weary of the Dash. Windows Mobile 6 is pretty slick, but you have to have a Hosted Exchange server in order for push e-mail to work, whereas the BlackBerry just works with my existing GMail account and can be set up to receive messages according to my existing GMail filters (instructions from Jeff Keen).

So tonight, I find myself back where I was three months ago: with a BlackBerry Pearl. I was foolish to ever give it up, it’s the ideal phone for me. And at $120 on eBay, it was such a great deal that I’ll be able to sell the Dash and walk away with about $85 in my pocket!